The news of the savage attack in the Westgate shopping mall of
Nairobi and of its more than 60 randomly chosen victims just puts
us in front of the same riddle as 9/11: what did the terrorists
want to achieve? No positive answer comes to mind. After the
assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Disraeli had already
curtly stated the obvious before the House of Commons:
"Assassination has never changed the history of the world."

Indeed, I can't think of a terrorist campaign which would have
achieved its long-term objectives. Even military operations, it can
be argued, have more often than not secured territory gains,
toppled dictators or bought a few years of peace only to be repaid
by another war, while the cost of warfare, always exceeding all
previsions, often dangerously weakened the "victor". On the
contrary, what violent strategies have generally achieved is
generating counter-measures as surely as new viruses have raised
the efficiency of immune systems.

Up in arms since its inception, the state of Israel has been at
war ever since. Coming from the neighboring countries, the Fedayeen
of the 70's produced a double barbed wire fence with a soft sand
alley in between so that terrorists footprints could very quickly
be spotted; coming from inside Israeli-controlled territory, the
intifada of the 90's produced the ultimate fence, an impassable
concrete wall. Soviet invasion of Afghanistan has produced various
mujahidin movements and eventually the Taliban. US presence on
Saudi ground for the Desert Storm campaign has produced al-Qaida.
It would be possible to argue that violent actions have repeatedly
had the contrary effect to their aims, and for a frightening
price.

There is a kind of malediction attached to war and terrorism.
Maximilien Robespierre tried to warn the French Convention off
sending of troops abroad to support revolution there. These "armed
missionaries", he warned, would only be setting the scene for a
dictator. Two things are certain: he was not listened to, and
Napoleon Bonaparte soon confiscated the French
Revolution.

Closer to us, the Independence of Algeria was such a merciless
war that Algeria has been living by the sword ever since- and dying
by the sword between 1991 and 2002; Somalia was disintegrated by
the US-led UN intervention there in 1991-1992 and the Shebabs who
have just murdered so many people in Nairobi are a by-product of
that particular intervention" Violence hardly seems the shortest
route to building the future"

Those who want peace must however consider what the Nairobi
massacre tells us.

We have failed to develop a global awareness that conflicts are
created by improper policies and by the self-indulging acceptance
of unfair situations by the most privileged. What the Kenyan
massacre must remind us of is that as long as the global
supermarket will serve only a small part of the world's population,
as long as misery will chain the poorest to their hopeless fate
while others wallow in abundance next door, as long as some are
denied basic human rights or legitimate reasons to hope for a
better life, there will pirates, Shebabs, or just frustrated young
people from our own inner cities to attack the nearest source of
wealth, especially when insolent, brazen luxury symbols are on
display.

Blatant injustice and humiliation generate anger, resentment,
and sometimes hate and revolt. Humanity must urgently learn to deal
with the root causes of these situations, and learn to deal
with these bad feelings, especially as strategists warn that
conflicts are often triggered by the scarcity of
resources.

Given that the world population will be soon over 7 billion, up
from 3 billion only 50 years ago, and en route to somewhere around
10 billion around 2050, resources will increasingly become the
subject of conflicts. These resources include minerals and energy
sources but also just water and arable land.

With conflict occasions on the rise, humanity has no choice but
to try to wriggle out of its traditional feudal or national
competitive model which provided the ideal frame for so many
conflicts in the past. Humanity has to learn to manage the planet
resources as a whole. In order to do that it has to discover how to
sit at a table and listen to one another's viewpoints, and how to
discuss general interest" That is, unless misplaced egos get in the
way. French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman, who did change the
history of the world when he introduced the first post-war
agreement between France and Germany on May 9 th , 1950,
made it very clear: "Democracy and her freedoms can be saved only
by the quality of the people who speak in her name."

People who care about peace and security should care very much
about helping those involved in conflicts to find an answer to
anger and to develop new motives to build a safer world. Trust
building is the raw material for peace building, and it cannot be
developed by mass-media but has to travel from person to person. In
our experience at CAUX-Initiatives of Change,
and I am sure in other groups' as well, it can be done and it
works.

Security policymakers should now seriously consider investing in
this kind of security and should look into supporting those who can
help on that path.

Antoine Jaulmes is an engineer from the Paris School of Mines (Paris Tech) later trained in business and finance at HEC Business School, Antoine Jaulmes has worked for 30 years with PSA Peugeot CitroÃ«n, holding various positions in production and (more...)